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We demonstrate the surprising benefits of legislative redistricting (including partisan gerrymandering) for American representative democracy. In so doing, our analysis resolves two long-standing controversies in American politics. First, whereas some scholars believe that redistricting reduces electoral responsiveness by protecting incumbents, others, that the relationship is spurious, we demonstrate that both sides are wrong: redistricting increases responsiveness. Second, while some researchers believe that gerrymandering dramatically increases partisan bias and others deny this effect, we show both sides are in a sense correct. Gerrymandering biases electoral systems in favor of the party that controls the redistricting as compared to what would have happened if the other party controlled it, but any type of redistricting reduces partisan bias as compared to an electoral system without redistricting. Incorrect conclusions in both literatures resulted from misjudging the enormous uncertainties present during redistricting periods, making simplified assumptions about the redistricters' goals, and using inferior statistical methods.

Antwortet eine Neueinteilung der Wahlkreise den Interessen der Wähler? Ist eine solche Einteilung nicht von vornherein einseitig von der aktuell dominierenden Mehrheitspartei bestimmt? Die Autoren versuchen, ihre Antwort empirisch zu bestätigen, daß eine Neueinteilung von Wahlkreisen trotz unvermeidlicher Einseitigkeiten positive Effekte zeitigt. "For one, our results demonstrate that contrary to all previous researchers, redistricting in state legislatures has substantially increased electoral responsiveness and kept it higher that it would be otherwise for about half of all elections in each state. The effects of any one redistricting are not permanent, but the decennial redistricting process repeatedly injects the political system with a healthy dose of increased responsiveness. For partisan bias, we have identified a difference in the causal question asked by two groups of researchers, making both sides in this controversy correct to a degree. Our results indicate that partisan and bipartisan redistricting plans reduce bias overall, leading to fairer electoral systems than if there had been no redistricting, but the difference between democratic-, bipartisan-, and republican-controlled redistricting plans within this smaller and comparatively fairer region are still politically significant." (AuD-Nar)

As most political scientists know, the outcome of the American presidential election can be predicted within a few percentage points (in the popular vote), based on information available months before the election. Thus, the general campaign for president seems irrelevant to the outcome (except in very close elections), despite all the media coverage of campaign strategy. However, it is also well known that the pre-election opinion polls can vary wildly over the campaign, and this variation is generally attributed to events in the campaign. How can campaign events affect people's opinions on whom they plan to vote for, and yet not affect the outcome of the election? For that matter, why do voters consistently increase their support for a candidate during his nominating convention, even though the conventions are almost entirely predictable events whose effects can be rationally forecast?In this exploratory study, we consider several intuitively appealing, but ultimately wrong, resolutions to this puzzle and discuss our current understanding of what causes opinion polls to fluctuate while reaching a predictable outcome. Our evidence is based on graphical presentation and analysis of over 67,000 individual-level responses from forty-nine commercial polls during the 1988 campaign and many other aggregate poll results from the 1952–92 campaigns.We show that responses to pollsters during the campaign are not generally informed or even, in a sense we describe, 'rational'. In contrast, voters decide, based on their enlightened preferences, as formed by the information they have learned during the campaign, as well as basic political cues such as ideology and party identification, which candidate to support eventually. We cannot prove this conclusion, but we do show that it is consistent with the aggregate forecasts and individual-level opinion poll responses. Based on the enlightened preferences hypothesis, we conclude that the news media have an important effect on the outcome of presidential elections – not through misleading advertisements, sound bites, or spin doctors, but rather by conveying candidates' positions on important issues.

Based on 1988 campaign polls. View that responses to pollsters during the campaign are not generally informed in contrast to the voting decision which is based on their "enlightened preferences" learned during the campaign as well as on ideology and party identification.

THE DRAMATIC INCREASE IN THE ELECTORAL ADVANTAGE OF INCUMBENCY HAS SPARKED WIDESPREAD INTEREST AMONG CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCHERS OVER THE LAST 15 YEARS. THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES THE INFLUENCE OF THE INCUMBENCY ADVANTAGE ON TWO FEATURES OF THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM IN THE U.S. HOUSE ELECTIONS: ELECTORAL RESPONSIVENESS AND PARTISAN BIAS. THE FINDINGS ARE DISCUSSED IN THIS ARTICLE. THE RESULTS INDICATE THAT INCUMBENCY ADVANTAGE AFFECTS THE UNDERLYING ELECTORAL SYSTEM, BUT CONTRARY TO THE CONVENTIONAL WISDON, THIS CHANGES THE TREND IN PARTISIAN BIAS MORE THAN ELECTORIAL RESPONSIVENESS.